There was only one answer; and it filled me
with profound discouragement. Seven possible rendezvous!—eight, counting
Norden. Which to make for? Out came the time-table and map, and with them hope.
The case was not so bad after all; it demanded no immediate change of plan,
though it imported grave uncertainties and risks. Norden was still the
objective, but mainly as a railway junction, only remotely as a seaport. Though
the possible rendezvous were eight, the possible stations were reduced to
five—Norden, Hage, Dornum, Esens, Wittmund—all on one single line. Trains from
east to west along this line were negligible, because there were none that
could be called night trains, the latest being the one I had this morning fixed
on to bring me to Norden, where it arrived at 7.15. Of trains from west to east
there was only one that need be considered, the same one that I had travelled
by last night, leaving Norden at 7.43 and reaching Esens at 8.50, and Wittmund
at 9.13. This train, as the reader who was with me in it knows, was in
correspondence with another from Emden and the south, and also, I now found,
with services from Hanover, Bremen, and Berlin. He will also remember that I
had to wait three-quarters of an hour at Norden, from 7 to 7.43.
Note: A
tragedy has befallen our community, one which makes me ashamed of my own past
behavior.
Art: Vija Celmins
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